And that's why NASB's roster selection is kinda refreshing, because they don't always go for the main protagonist.
Chiming in late, but people only say that when their favorites dont make it but if they added Anthony instead of Samus, Silver instead of Sonic or Chunky instead of Donkey Kong because of meme culture or online favoritism, there would be riots. I think its only far that a series being newly introduced tends to favor the faces of said series first, as thats kind of the point of having a crossover. As it expands, then stranger choices become a fair bet, like Pirania Plant, but you cant have something like Plant in Smash without earning it first by having Luigi, Peach, Bowser etc.
I keep saying that Pokémon's starters are like Fire Emblem lords. They're the most likely to be in Smash (especially with our current track record), but also rather same-y and uninteresting compared to anyone else.
Literally none of the starters play alike in any way, if the 5 didnt share the fact they were "starters" in their respective games, there would be no way to even group them moveset, design or style wise. In fact they are all pretty unique to even smash standards, the closest would be what Charizard being a dragon and Ridley being in the game but they play nothing alike.
Tbh hating on starters and comparing it to lords when those have actual clones is just hypocritical talk from a part of the online discourse because its not the character you happen to care/feel nostalgic about personally so whoever gets in instead will automatically be called boring or something. If they added some unexpected Galar character that wasnt a starter but wasnt who you cared for still, this part of the "fans" would just find a new, broader label to group them to complain thats the issue now, just like people started complaining about swords after rpg characters who werent from fire emblem happened to make it and they needed a new reason to hate them for not being their pet choice.
I’m not really fine with them either but Smash fixed Mythra in my opinion. I actually like Mythra’s Smash design. I personally think that Pyra’s outfit was always bad. Neither of them were ever as bad as that rabbit blade.
Her original design really doesnt show anything a normal person wouldnt see on a beach or nightclub, its actually more censored, and the few changes only happened due the japanese rating system that Sakurai jokes about on his columns, so I dont understand why americans get so angry or defensive like it fixed something if she has leggings on her skirt or not or something like that unless its a religious group that isnt aware Japan has a different culture alltogether. It is interesting from a historical research point of view though, since Ive been analisying old extremist campaigns from moralist americans from the 80s/90s and I can find their same discourse and life views in current day "game players", as a scholar, it makes me wonder how extremism and puritanism spread. And I dont see any issue with Tora, Poppi or Rex you seem to have, they are all charismatic, have good arcs, and while Rex has a strange fashion, it relates to his salvager suit at least.
Unfortunately I never got to see her story because I refused to use her due to her design. It is a shame if she was actually a great character otherwise and I missed out.
She has a good story and imo hating characters over moralism/soccer mom morales is a bit of an evil thing to do after all those years where soccer moms wanted to burn games for much less, but its pretty interesting that society went a way where a minority of people inherited puritanism equal to a soccer mom that thinks games are evil or satanic because a character has horns or a cleavage now play games and want them censored as much as the religious soccer moms used to yet play them, as someone who researches this stuff, I wonder if the people who wanted to censor Mortal Kombat also played it, things would be different today. But I say give the cast a chance, specially when the game itself doesnt really have anything offensive in it to a normal person from most countries, (I suggest to people to deal with internalized hate this kind of stuff may bring, because having studied psychology in the past, its irrational and unearned, and embrace these characters based on themselves because the blades all get some really good side quests that shouldnt be missed out if one likes the story).